Collision
by Sadazen
Summary: You've never had delusions about being patient. [LeonxCloud weirdness. Somewhat angsty if you squint.]


**A/N: **Well. This is a bit of a change of pace. o.o I've actually been wanting to write something with this sort of dynamic for a while, but I never could figure out where it would fit. Then something clicked, somewhere, and it just sort of wrote itself.

Hmm, I've already stated this once, but maybe I should do so again. This fic contains yaoi. Slash. Homosexual content. (And, you know. Suggestions of violence. And suggestions of many things other than violence.) You know where to go if that's not your cup of tea. Okay okay?

**Disclaimer: **Kingdom Hearts and all its characters are the property of Squaresoft/Square-Enix, and not me. Oh well.

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**Collision**

_It's just sparring._

_Everyone hears the noise, for sure, but no one bothers listening. Steel rings against steel at some ungodly hour and everyone knows it's about staying sharp. It's about getting stronger. Maybe there'll be something on the side—some friendly competition, dry banter—but that's what it's about. Everyone knows that, so no one really stops to listen anymore._

_The thing is, that's _not_ what it's about, not really. That's not what it's about, and you're the only ones who know. Steel ringing against steel, the play of lightning in the dark—it's about wondering. Wondering if today will be the day one of you finally snaps._

_Sometimes you think of tossing aside your swords entirely, when you meet each other's eyes over the metal and realize how strange that feels. Then something shifts into place somewhere in the heart of you that makes you forget what hesitation means—to draw blood, to leave traces, to strip away the layers just so you know you can, and deny it all fiercely afterwards. Even when it rains driving as needles, you hardly feel it._

_You just want to get it over with, to find out who's going to end up taking that last fall over the edge. You never hesitate, you never wait, you never think that maybe there's some other way to do this… this. You've never had delusions about being patient._

_Because that's what it's really about—going over the edge. It's not as simple as _just sparring._ Never is, not even in the aftermath when you can start trying to put each other together again._

He shrugs off his jacket—it's probably sodden and heavy and he can probably move better without it—and you wonder if he notices the momentary hitch in your breath. You wonder if he knows it's more than just little pains, more than fatigue that he hears in the brief pause between jacket-across-shoulders and jacket-on-floor.

He bites down on his lower lip, pulls back the bathroom mirror and searches around for the antiseptic, bandages. He finds them soon enough. You figure he probably _doesn't_ notice, probably doesn't know.

Nails scrape briefly along the flesh of your arms as he slides the shirt—what remains of it, actually, meaning little more than tatters—from your back. You can't help him with it; you can only wonder if he sees you shiver, the slightest of shudders that looks for all intents and purposes like just another one of those dull aches, but in reality is something quite different.

You look down at the pale of his hands, near-indistinguishable from the pale of the bandages and the pale of your own skin. When some foreign texture catches against your bruised ribs that you know is not cloth, you draw a breath so quick it catches in your chest, turns into a hiss. His fingers stop for a moment; his head tilts back in some sort of silent inquiry. _Does it hurt?_

Not _Did I hurt you?_

You can sense the shade of difference between the two. You think of telling him the truth, knowing that he really meant the latter question, then you shake your head no. _No, it doesn't hurt. I'm all right. I'm not bleeding or anything._

_Not this time._

You don't have the strength to do anything more. You're too tired even to put out your own hand and trace along the scar on his face, however much you want to. You just can't. He, in turn, looks at you a while longer, something like concern in those stormy eyes of his. It looks a lot like concern, but you can never be too sure with him.

By your shoulder his hand pauses—bandage and all—second, third and fourth fingers not-quite-resting along the curve of your collarbone. You pull in another breath, your chest rises, and suddenly the hand is… well, very _there_, by the crook of your neck. Something else entirely comes up into those eyes, but not for long, not for too long.

Some part of you knows that he will not. That he cannot. That he's too stubborn and contrary and proud, too much like you in all the worst ways, with the same utterly deplorable habit of twisting everything into something more complicated than it needs to be, but the rest of you is really just annoyed. You thought, I don't know, that you might have been an exception. That there's a possibility you've always been an exception. You think he knows this. You're annoyed because neither of you is brave enough to act on it much, yet.

His nerves are so well-honed it's ridiculous, but they must also be ridiculously fine-tuned, because when you finally find the energy to reach out and brush two, three fingers along his jawline, across the arc of chin and throat instead of the scar, you think you see his eyes slip out of focus, feel his breath grow ever-so-slightly unsteady. For a second you can almost imagine his own bruises, the ones you must have left. You even think you might just understand why he can't let you see them. If he ever lets you see them…

He'll have lost then.

"You all right?" you say a little nonchalantly. You're privately amazed that it doesn't take too much effort to rise to the challenge. "Are you hurt?"

Your voice breaks everything. He shifts backward; his hand drops at the same time yours does. Then the hesitation is gone, and so is the honesty.

"No."

"Leon." The bandages finish their circuit around your torso. You've learned not to flinch anymore when he ties them into place at your side. "We had a good run today, didn't we?"

"…Yeah," he mutters the word after a pause, so softly it can be denied. You barely hear it. You might even have missed it, but sound kind of echoes off the tile. Still, it's not enough to send either of you over the edge—never is. "Better than most."

**Fin**


End file.
